Online chats are a popular medium through which many users communicate. One chat medium is Instant Messaging (IM). The current art of IM provides a chat window to communicate with other IM users. During the course of a day, IM users initiate and respond to numerous chat requests. Oftentimes, it is not possible for an IM user to respond to all the chat windows in a timely fashion. This scenario can be caused when an IM user receives excessive chat requests, the IM user is at his/her desk but on the phone talking to another work colleague, or the IM user is not physically at the desk where his/her PC or laptop is located. IM clients allow users to set alert preferences for a variety of events. For example, the IM user can be alerted by a sound when he/she receives a chat request or whenever someone on the contact list comes on-line.
When responding to numerous chat requests, it may not be immediately obvious to the receiver of the request who is requesting the chat, without physically opening that particular chat window. Current IM clients do not provide a method to prioritize chat requests to assist the IM user in deciding who to respond to first. An IM user will typically respond sequentially to chat requests, even though the IM user may or may not know if the requester is a member of the receiving IM user's contact list or the requestor's position in the organization's hierarchy.
For example, if the requestor is the IM users' manager, or someone higher up in the reporting chain, the requester expects an instant, or at least a timely, response to the request. Simultaneously, the IM user has numerous other requests to respond to. However, the IM user is not aware that a request from his manager is among the numerous requests, and the IM user does not respond immediately. If the IM user is aware of the request, then he/she could timely respond to the manager's chat request.